An Incorruptible Message
While many claim that this pathway or another gives them the spiritual “boost” they need or are looking for, feelings are no guarantee one is correct. For as we all know — especially those of us who have been in “love” when we were younger — feelings aren’t always right.
Therefore, without getting our “feelings” involved and objectively reviewing the evidence, there is, then, no doubt, when investigating the Truths of the Shroud of Turin that Jesus is the Resurrected Son of God!
But the world wishes to disbelieve this cloth.
Can we, therefore, prove it to the skeptics another way without using the Shroud?
Obviously we can and that proof can be found in the world of the incorruptibles.
How fascinating that, like the Shroud, even with the proof staring the skeptic in the face, they continue to make all sorts of innuendos, excuses for disbelief or outright fabrications; even accusing the Church of chicanery in this realm. (This is how the word “legends” has come to be used in our time, where skeptics misuse its modern-day meaning to discount Church history. In fact, the original Latin meaning of this word is “something to be read” and was in direct reference to the miraculous lives of the Saints!)
The fact remains the bodies themselves and the lives of those who inhabited them bear witness to the Truth. One’s faith in believing or disbelieving that incorruptibles exist is a test before God. A test many people fail.
In the realm of the incorruptibles, we are coming up on some important dates to remember. Before the actual feast days arrive, we wanted to present a picture that the Lord has chosen carefully those whom He has given the gift of incorruptibility.
The story actually begins with the first incorruptible Herself — none other than the Woman whom Jesus loves the most: His Mother. As we approach the Feast of the Assumption of Mary’s Body and Soul into Heaven next month, we do well to comprehend that this is the first Person God graces (in the New Covenant) with a body that will not taste corruption.
And while the Lord will favor others, it strikes us as we review these incredible miracles that God, in His Mercy, has favored more women for this gift than even some of His closest male friends.
We believe this is a great indication of how much God truly loves women — especially those who have chosen to be his brides in life!
After His Mother, the next person who was granted this great grace was a 2nd-century martyr by the name of Cecilia. Although well-documented that her remains were found by Pope Pascal I in 822 who was given the information by the Saint in a dream, the fact that Cecilia’s remains are not on view today and were last seen in the 16th Century gives a lot of maneuvering room for skeptics to decry this miracle.
But the Lord did not stop with St. Cecilia.
He has left — just like the evidence of His Shroud — numerous incorruptible bodies for all to see.
While her feast day is not until next month and falls interestingly just before the Assumption of Mary, the one we wish to spotlight this week is the very dear friend of St. Francis and the founder of an order, St. Clare of Assisi. The reason we are highlighting her at this time is that while we are used to celebrating the date of a Saint’s entrance into Heaven, it was on July 11th that St. Clare was born.
And this is a key to looking at the proverbial “big picture” from the Lord’s perspective as we review the lives of His closest confidants.
As we all know, since there are no coincidences in God’s Universe, we must remember to connect the seemingly almost disarrayed dots. For in reality, they are not in disarray but in the perfect order for those who follow the Lord’s Will.
St. Clare is a prime example of this.
Without reviewing the standard particulars of St. Clare’s life, there is a simple connection we believe is overlooked in which God continually shows mankind the one true and safe pathway to His Home.
Long before St. Clare lived, there was another famous pair who gave everything to the Lord and began to set the rules in stone for monastic life.
Those two were St. Benedict and his sister St. Scholastica. Much can be said of the accomplishments these two brought to the holy Truths of the Church.
Cannot the same be said of St. Francis and St. Clare?
How does this all relate to God working in His mysterious yet, if we look hard enough and from His perspective, set ways?
It is, if one really believes in God, not a “coincidence” that St. Clare was born on the Feast of St. Benedict — a feast that does not relate to his death, but to the transfer of his relics.
And what will St. Francis do with St. Clare when she informs him she wants to follow his “little” way?
Unsure of what to do with Clare and not having a place for women yet in his new order, Francis will send Clare to a Benedictine monastery for safekeeping! The woman who began her earthly life on the feast of the great monk will begin her ultimate spiritual journey in contemplation among Benedictine women!
The story of stories with St. Francis’ lifelong friend is at the end of her life, when soldiers under the orders of Emperor Frederick II are attacking Assisi and her newfound order of Poor Clares. The Saint, ill and near death, will be asked by her fellow Franciscans to aid them from the dreaded assault they feared would not only come upon their convent, but upon their bodies as well.
It was then that St. Clare, rising from her sick bed, retrieved the Eucharist for display in a Monstrance. She went to the where the armed forces could see her as they were soon advancing to the convent’s position. It seemed hopeless to those around Clare.
But in her ultimate display of faith, St. Clare raised the Eucharist against the dark hearts of men — and that is when the miracle occurred.
The Host shone through the blackened moment as a beacon in the darkness — in a power so blinding that the soldiers, in fear of their lives, did not continue their attack but retreated to leave the Poor Clares in their solitude.
Like her companion St. Francis, Clare had displayed an unwavering faith in God against all obstacles. In the piercing black, she had shone the piercing Light.
And what was God’s reward to this woman of faith, who like St. Cecilia, did not relinquish her belief in the Lord despite the overwhelming circumstances?
Today, St. Clare is an incorruptible.
We have been privileged to view her body as it lies in the Church named after her in Assisi, Italy. This is a woman who died in 1253 — 750 years ago! Yet, her remains have not tasted the corruption of death!
With St. Clare’s body is another remarkable object for believers and skeptics to reflect on. It is the Monstrance that held the Host the very night that Clare walked from her death bed to repel — through her faith in Jesus — the soldiers who dared to come against her convent.
We are not aware of any of the soldiers involved in that incident whose bodies today are on display.
Nor are we aware of any skeptics or “debunkers” who have been found incorruptible.
We are aware, however, of another incorruptible whom we have seen with our own eyes as well. Pope St. Pius X who lies in state in a side chapel in St. Peter’s! His feast day is just before the Feast of the Queenship of Mary!
And what is the common theme among all those whose bodies the Lord has given the grace of not tasting the corruption of death?
What is the message of Mary as the Immaculate Conception?
What is the message of St. Cecilia who refused at the point of a sword to renounce her faith?
What is the message of St. Clare who believed so fervently in the Eucharist that she repelled an invading force by holding the Host aloft against the enemy?
What is the message of Pope St. Pius X who warned the Church against the incursion of “modernism” into its ranks?
What is the message of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica who renounced the world in favor of the Lord?
It is — in every one of these examples — the same message of the Shroud!
The message that Jesus is God.
The message that Jesus is alive!
The message that Jesus is present in the Eucharist!
The message that His Mother, as the Immaculate Conception, is the first, through Her Assumption into Heaven, to not taste the corruption of death.
And there is another message in these lives.
The message that the Church is NOT perfect and is always in need of reform. The reforms that Benedict and Francis through Divine Inspiration brought to Catholicism through their newfound orders.
And the message that St. Clare, like many Saints before and after her, was NOT shy to tell the pope when he was wrong. For it was Clare who refused to be told by the pontiff that he could absolve her of her vow of poverty and allow her and her order to hold property. Instead, it was Clare who convinced Pope Gregory IX to grant her the “privilege to not have privileges”!
In these messages, there is the final and authoritative Truth from God Himself. If we hope for eternal life, we will not find it in other belief systems; nor we will find it outside of the Eucharist.
We will find it only by following, as these great Saints did, Jesus and Mary!
© 2003 Agnus Dei Presents!
Monstrance behind her.
